If you haven’t taken the opportunity to check out a wine tasting at Total Wine, I would recommend! Once you are on their site and you navigate to your local Total Wine, go to the Discover menu and view Classes & Events. From there you can view, by month, the upcoming classes & events and register for one! These are $20 per person, are 2 hours in duration, and include the wine tasting as well as some light snacks. If you happen to have Grand Reserve status with Total Wine, you can take advantage of the monthly promo code that you receive when booking a class which gives you two complimentary classes per month.
At each seat, you will find the list of wines that you will be tasting, along with a short description and the price. You will also have two glasses (one for red, one for white), a writing utensil, a bottle of water, and a cup for discarding (I didn’t use that). As the instructor describes each wine and it’s specific region, you can take some notes in the wine tasting sheet that is provided as well as capture your thoughts on the wine after it is poured.
After the very educational and fun two hours, you can use the coupon provided by Total Wine to shop the wines you tasted as well as the entire store.
We attended the Vive la France wine tasting in July with a good friend and her daughter. I would recommend grabbing dinner before heading to the store. The classrooms are typically towards the back of the store once you arrive. We had a wonderful time enjoying each others company, learning about a few French wines and tasting them as well! Here are some snapshots of our experience. If you decide to check out a wine tasting class at Total Wine, I’d love to hear about your experience!